Congo's hidden war robs parents of their children

The great rainforest of the Congo basin joins the verdant plains of central
Africa in a region so remote that even its wars are unknown.

Ever since its birth in Northern Uganda two decades ago, the LRA has filled its ranks by abducting childrenPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

By David Blair, in Dungu

4:38PM GMT 29 Nov 2008

A hidden war against Africa's children has broken out in the far north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, near the frontier with Sudan.

This conflict, which has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes in the last month alone, is entirely separate from Congo's insurgency around the eastern city of Goma.

While Goma's crisis has received exhaustive attention – including visits by David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Bernard Kouchner, his French counterpart – an emergency almost as serious is unfolding 400 miles further north.

Rebels from the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) are ranging across a huge and isolated area of rainforest and savannah – and Congo's children are their main targets.

Ever since its birth in Northern Uganda two decades ago, the LRA has filled its ranks by abducting children. These innocent victims – at least 20,000 of whom have fallen into the LRA's hands – are tortured, brainwashed and turned into soldiers or sexual playthings.

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Today, the LRA and its psychotic leader, Joseph Kony, have been driven out of Uganda. But Kony has found refuge in Congo, where he runs a rebel headquarters located in Garamba National Park, a World Heritage Site where central Africa's last white rhinos were once protected.

Both Uganda and Southern Sudan have relatively strong armed forces, able to defend their borders and defeat the LRA. But Congo, a failed state with a shambolic army, presents Kony with a giant soft target.

The former altar boy, whose murderous campaign lacks any identifiable cause or political aim, has duly turned north-eastern Congo into his new killing ground. Hundreds of Kony's fighters are ravaging Orientale province, raiding villages and completely depopulating a swathe of territory covering at least 4,000 square miles.

At dawn on Nov 1, they attacked the town of Dungu, found on the edge of Congo's rainforest. It soon became clear that the rebels were hunting for children.

Digida Vunga Peleka, 71, was led away into the forest with his four grand-daughters, aged between 15 and 20. All were forced to carry heavy loads, including food and clothes looted from Dungu's mud huts.

"It was impossible to cry and say you are tired, because if you do that, they kill you," said Mr Peleka. One of his friends, known as Badi, did complain and became so angry that he hit a rebel with a stick.

"The LRA commander ordered his men to kill Badi. One of the rebels shot him and the bullet went in one side of his body and came out from the other side," said Mr Peleka.

As the column marched north, with some 200 prisoners held captive by about 100 guerrillas, the old man comforted his grand-daughters and tried to persuade the rebels to free them.

On the third day, he used the respect accorded to his age to speak to the LRA commander, a Ugandan man in his 50s who steered the column using GPS signals from two Thuraya satellite phones.

"I asked the commander 'what will become of my grand-daughters'?" said Mr Peleka. "He looked at me and gave me his word of honour that after four mornings had passed, my grand-daughters would be released."

On the following day, Mr Peleka was abruptly freed, along with 36 other captives, all of them adults. This happened while the four girls were further ahead in the column, depriving him of the chance to say any parting words or make a final plea for their liberty.

"There was no chance even to say goodbye," said Mr Peleka. "The truth is, the LRA don't need people who are adults. They are looking for young girls and young boys."

Mr Peleka managed to return to Dungu after six days on the march. But his grandchildren are still missing. Today, his family keep a tearful vigil for Yolande, 15, Pamela, 16, Aimee, 19 and Blandine, 20.

Their mothers treasure a few photographs of their missing children. Florence Nangume, the mother of Yolande, has not managed a single night of unbroken sleep since her daughter's abduction. "I became very sick and I can't sleep well," she said.

"Yolande is such an intelligent girl. She never had to repeat a year at school. I want the LRA to return her to us, to send her back to us, that's all."

Elsewhere in Dungu, some mothers managed to save their children. When the rebels attacked, Nene Mbolingasia, 29, realised that they were after her four sons and two daughters and screamed for the children to run away.

She continued shouting warnings even when the guerrillas ordered her to keep quiet. Incensed by her defiance, eight of them set upon her with fists, sticks and rifle butts.

"I kept on shouting because I know how they kill people and how they take our children. So I shouted to my children 'go, go away from here, if I die, I die alone'," said Mrs Mbolingasia.

"They were beating me and saying I was not to shout. They entered my house and looted and broke everything."

The rebels stripped her naked and smashed a rifle butt into the side of her head, deafening her right ear. One man tried to throttle the mother, while another punched her so hard that he broke two of her teeth.

The rebels eventually left her naked and bleeding. But all of Mrs Mbolingasia's children managed to run to safety.

After the raid, the great majority of Dungu's 57,000 people fled their homes. Some crossed the Kibali river, moving from the north side of the town, where the LRA had struck, to the south bank, which was safer.

Thousands more fled into the forest, where many still remain. Almost a month after the attack, large areas of Dungu remain deserted.

Further north, the LRA raided the smaller town of Duru and kidnapped 65 children, all aged between 11 and 15, from its secondary school. Afterwards, they burned down most of Duru, forcing every inhabitant to flee.

Congo's army is clearly incapable of defending the area. Meanwhile, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, with 17,000 troops across Congo - soon to rise to 20,000 - chooses to deploy only 500 soldiers in the region ravaged by the LRA.

They have made no attempt to defend Dungu or fight the rebels. Instead, overstretched by Goma's crisis, UN officials privately admit they are ignoring the LRA. One senior officer said that resources were so tight that Kony's rebels were considered a "sideshow".

In total, perhaps 120,000 people have been cleared from their homes in Dungu and nearby. Yet there has been virtually no response from any relief agency. The handful of aid workers in Dungu was evacuated after the attack.

No supplies have arrived from the World Food Programme. Caritas, the local partner of the British aid agency, Cafod, has distributed blankets, plastic sheets and other basic supplies to 12,000 refugees.

But no other relief has reached the area. Father Cosmas Mbolingaba, the local head of Caritas, said: "People outside think the problem is only in Goma - and we have been forgotten. That is what we believe."